


Moondust

by Gayneral



Category: South Park
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, Canon-typical language, Craig doesn't know how to cope with emotions, Craig has a hopeless crush on Tweek, F/M, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, M/M, Original Character(s), Pining, Suicide mention, they are 17 for the most part of the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 21:38:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13983819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gayneral/pseuds/Gayneral
Summary: Craig was not sure why he was still hung up over Tweek anyways or if he was just hung up over him again and had somehow missed the year’s in-between completely.All that he knew was that seeing Tweek yesterday had shot a bullet right through his chest and had massacred him right in front of his friends and Daniel Fields of all people.In which Craig, against better judgement, goes to a party and has the worst night of his life





	Moondust

**Author's Note:**

> A few Trigger Warnings again:  
> As mentioned in the tags there is homophobia and homophobic language, mostly brought to you by one Character only tho  
> The suicide ment. is only one sentence but I still wanted to give y'all a heads up  
> There is also being forcefully outed  
> So please be careful if that Triggers you, it happens very early on in this oneshot
> 
> This is the longest fandom work I've ever written holy shit

’Craig Tucker is gay‘; it said in huge, red letters, sprayed across three lockers.

Tweek wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not because technically it was as if someone had written ‘water is wet’ all over the walls, meaning it was true and nothing new anymore.  
What had started as pretence when they had been ten years old, had turned out to be more than that and after years, it was pretty much common knowledge that Craig (and Tweek as well for that matter) was a full-fledged homosexual.

But standing there, facing the lockers and letting his eyes wander over the words that were screaming at him, Tweek didn’t feel like laughing at all.  
Perhaps that was because the intent behind the message that graced their locker room was not of an informational sort, it was meant to be insulting, exposing.  
They were fourteen now and only attending High School for a year, together with countless of other kids that knew nothing about what qualified as normal in South Park.  
In their home town, where everyone had seen them hold hands since the tender age of ten, everyone had long moved on from being overly obsessed with the towns ‘first gay kids’, but things were different in the City.

Here, where the student body was a blend of kids from South Park, North Park and other towns around (a fact that made Tweek ten times more nervous than he’d been before), Craig was only known as the kid that didn’t give two shits about anything.  
He had continued his glorious streak of most visits to the principal’s office right on the first day of High School, when flipping off a teacher that had told him to take off his hat in class.

But the fact that he was gay, and had been in a relationship with Tweek up until a week before they had headed to their new school, was still a secret.  
A secret that was now written across the lockers for everyone to read.

Tweek looked around nervously, as if about to commit a crime, and frantically scanned the area for something to scrub off the message that had been left for his best friend.  
He was still the only one in the clammy room, which, no matter how often it was cleaned, was reeking of the sweat of boys in the middle of puberty.  
It was a security measurement that Tweek took every time they had p.e. lessons, sneaking out of the class before a little earlier and heading into the locker room before anyone else was there.  
There was something about undressing together with about twenty other boys that had already grown heads taller than him (Tweek was sure all the coffee intake kept him from growing properly and would leave him the shortest forever), that made him uncomfortable.

But instead of already getting into his gym clothes he still stood across of those words like paralyzed, his half open backpack dangerously close to slip from his shoulder.  
If only he’d be taller, Tweek would’ve stood in front of the locker to block it when he heard steps coming from the hallways, but he wasn’t and so he had no other choice but to pray that it was someone that he knew.

It was Stan that pushed the door open, dragging his feet as he entered, completely lost in thoughts until he saw Tweek standing in between the lockers and some benches.  
He raised a brow, visibly confused to find Tweek there, still in his normal clothes, instead of sitting on one of the benches, already dressed, legs twitching as he waited.  
Stan let his backpack fall in front of one of the lockers and seemed ready to start a conversation before he froze in his movements, halfway bend over to untie his laces.  
His eyes had caught the metaphorical elephant in the room.

“Tweek? Why…”, there was an unspoken question hanging in the air and Tweek dashed forward to give Stan a slight jab in the shoulder.  
“Alright, alright, sorry for assuming it was you. That was stupid”; Stan said, making a soothing gesture before turning to face the locker fully.  
He looked worried and took a step towards the metal front, experimentally dabbing a finger against the letters, trying to scratch them off with his nails.  
Of course Tweek had tried that before and it was without effect.

“Was that there already when you came?”  
Stan frowned when Tweek answered him with a quick nod.  
“Maybe it was some dude from the class that has P.E. before us, if we tell Mr. Winters about this maybe he can find out who that was”  
Mr. Winters was their class teacher that had told them at the beginning of the last year that they could always ask him for help. Tweek thought that was nothing but empty bullshit and he’d rather rip out his own leg than to talk with that man about his problems.

“And If we know, we can kick their ass”, Stan added and scratched the back of his neck, “But what about it now”  
Stan looked around in search for something to help them out in their situation and Tweek thought to himself that he truly did not understand why Craig disliked Stan so much.  
There had been no reason to help, but Stan was doing it anyway.  
Tweek was sure that made Stan worthy of some brownie points at least.

Before Tweek could let out the stream of ‘What can we do’s ’ that had been building up in his head in the uprising panic, the door to the locker room opened again and idle chatting marked the arrival of the rest of the boys.  
Tweek was sure his expression mirrored Stan’s completely, eyes flickering from the writing to the door, unmoving like a deer in the headlights.  
Leading the group that had just entered was some kid from North Park, James, if Tweek remembered correctly, and he stopped walking in the middle of the way when he spotted the scenery in front of him.

His friend, a greasy boy that still wore braces, ran right into him and cursed at James before peering around him, trying to find out what the fuss was about. His eyes instantly widened and after five absolutely nerve wracking seconds, he was the first one that began to laugh.

In the crowd of teenage boys that came flooding in, Tweek helplessly searched for familiar faces and met the eyes of Token that got on his tiptoes to find out what it was that caused the first row of boys to break into hysterical laughter.  
Tweek saw him hit Clyde’s shoulder, who was standing next to him, too short to see anything and after telling him something, Clyde turned around and seemed to scan the area around the entrance.  
Looking for Craig.

Of course Cartman’s arrival marked the point where everything toppled down completely.  
He used his full body mass to push through the rows and elbowed Stan who had tried his best in blocking the bold, red letters.  
“What’s going on here you guys? What’s so funny?”  
It took him a few seconds to read the words but when he was done he let out a screeching laughter and turned to the crowds, already boasting in the attention he saw himself receiving soon.  
“Somebody spoiled all the fun but it’s true you guy’s, Craig’s a big, ass licking faggot! Craig’s a faggot”  
Cartman waved his hands around, as if he was pretending to be an animator on some summer island paradise, prompting the others to join him in his chant.

Tweek hated how many actually began chanting as well, and how many only continued laughing.  
He felt his hands shaking as Stan tried to hold Cartman’s mouth shut, who kept him back with a fat hand on Stan’s chest like it was nothing.  
From the door, the crowd suddenly split in two, building a passage for someone that had just entered.  
Tweek heard and identified the person before he saw him.  
“God fucking damnit Clyde, stop pulling me away like that. I don’t give two shits about the cool rock you saw outside”  
James friend, that greasy little pig, clapped in his hands when he noticed Craig and even though everyone had already seen him, felt the need to yell ,”Craig’s here!”  
Cartman’s tasteless little show had fuelled him, and grinning like a madman he continued, “Hey Craig didn’t know you were a homo. To think you saw me naked before. Be careful guys, don’t let him touch you or you’ll catch the gay too”

Tweek didn’t want to see the look on Craig’s face because he couldn’t imagine what it’d be like.  
Even knowing Craig since years, Tweek didn’t know what to expect now.  
Anger most likely, at being taunted like this or perhaps Craig would stay completely calm, in that detached way of his, actually not giving a shit.

With Clyde still hanging onto his arm, in the failed attempt to save his friend from the sight, Craig blinked wordlessly at the lockers and there was no emotion flickering across his face to give away what he thought.  
The Room had fallen silent, Cartman held a contest with James friend over who could look the most like a kid on Christmas, waiting for Craig’s reaction.  
Craig didn’t give them the satisfaction because instead of getting angry or seeming hurt, he turned around, tugged his arm from Clyde’s grip and said, “Yeah I am”, before walking right back out of the locker room.

When Craig was gone, Tweek punched James friend in the face.  
He’s shorter than him by far but size didn’t matter when Tweek was angry.  
Daniel, Tweek found out his name at the roll call next morning when Mr. Winter asked what happened to his eye, walked around with a deep purple bruise for a week and didn’t dare look at Tweek the wrong way anymore for the next years to come.

Craig on the other hand sat in his chair as if nothing had happened and was sent to the principal’s office forty-five minutes later for flipping of Mr. Winters the third time in a row.

Of course the locker room event didn’t leave Craig untouched, but he never spoke about that day and Tweek didn’t pressure him to.

**

Craig hated parties. They were loud, crowded and tons of people wanted to speak to him, not understanding that he was not being funny when he told them to fuck off.  
And Craig especially hated parties thrown by the football team.  
Ever since that incident in 9th Grade most members of the team had him marked and Craig avoided big gatherings around something, supressing the fear that those brought with them. 

As he drove by Jimmy’s house his friend waved at him from his window, giving him a bright smile.  
Jimmy’s parents had dragged him to a family celebration and therefore he had been spared the disaster that had taken place tonight. That lucky bastard.  
Craig raised one of his hands in greetings and parked the car in the garage, ignoring the vicious buzzing of his phone inside the pocket of his black jeans.  
He let himself fall back against the seat and groaned out loud, rubbing his eyes with his hands as if he could wipe away the unpleasant memories.  
Craig still felt the shock like vibrations deep in his bones, paired with a lump in his throat that was impossible to swallow down.

If only he would’ve listened to the first instinct that had told him to stay away from the party.  
That would’ve spared him off so many problems, for example the reason that his phone would not stay silent ever since he had left the gathering in a mad rush.  
Hadn’t it been for Clyde, he would’ve spent the evening at home, watching Red Racer, a show that was still one of Craig’s favourites, despite the poor quality it had compared to the new shows these days.  
But Clyde, who was part of the football team, had been the reason the team had won their last game and so the party had been in his honour.  
Maybe Craig was a little delirious when he had agreed to join the celebration because he could not think of another reason to have agreed.  
It certainly had not been Clyde’s endless begging.

Craig left the car, not without sighing again, and slammed the door shut behind him.  
The lights were off when he entered the house so it was safe to assume that his parents were already asleep. Knowing Tricia well, she was probably reading under her blanket using her phone as a light source, keeping up the pretence that she was sleeping.  
In any other night he would’ve stopped at Tricia’s door and would’ve hissed a “Go the fuck to sleep” into the room just because he knew it annoyed her, but today he fell right into his bed.

The glow in the dark stars that he and Tweek had put up at age eleven had long stopped glowing and in the dark of his room Craig could only see them because he knew they were there.  
They were completely useless by now but he couldn’t get himself to take them off and replace them.  
Maybe because they had been a gift from Tweek.

Back then their afternoon had consisted of jumping on Craig’s bed to reach the ceiling, each of them with a star in the hand, to stick them wherever they could get to first.  
When all the stars had been put up, Craig had pulled the curtains shut and they had laid on his bed, looking up at the stars, glowing brightly over their heads.  
They had held hands the entire time, not saying a word until his mother had come in and the light from the hallway had completely destroyed all the magic.

Craig pulled his phone from his pocket and was greeted with twenty-two new messages from four contacts.  
It didn’t surprise him that seventeen of those were Clyde’s and contained a multitude of spelling mistakes.

[08.07., 02:12] Clyde: Crsih  
[08.07., 02:12] Clyde: *Craig  
[08.07., 02:12] Clyde: u lay dyd  
[08.07., 02:14] Clyde: *u okay dude?  
[08.07., 02:16] Clyde: wheee did u go  
[08.07., 02:20] Clyde: Ohhhh token tild me u eft  
[08.07., 02:22] Clyde: Dudw  
[08.07., 02:22] Clyde: Duse di u wanr me to punch that guy  
[08.07., 02:23] Clyde: Id do ut  
[08.07., 02:23] Clyde: Id pincj some1 for u craif  
[08.07., 02:25] Clyde: craiggggggg  
[08.07., 02:26] Clyde: Im srt foe gwttinf u to comw to the party  
[08.07., 02:30] Clyde: Tweej saya hes worrjed abt u  
[08.07., 02:30] Clyde: I told hin to fuk off  
[08.07., 02:30] Clyde: but then I apologied bc I cant be mean to tweek  
[08.07., 02:30] Clyde: plz foefive me ceaif

Craig rolled his eyes at Clyde’s drunk messaging and left him on read to open the message he’d gotten from Bebe  
It was just one that simply said  
[08.07., 02:40] Stevens : Clyde threw up on Martins couch. I’ll drive him home now because that ultimately spoiled the fun and he’s trying to braid my hair. He’s such a weird drunk haha. Anyway, see you in school on Monday

Craig was thankful that she had bitten back any comment about what had happened, even though he was certain that by now she must’ve found out. Either through Clyde who was full of good intentions but sadly full of alcohol too, that loosened his mouth, or through Daniel who was most likely spreading around the word.

There was another one from Kenny, in which he asked Craig if he was doing alright, surprisingly without any mistakes even though Craig was sure he saw Kenny drink quite a few at the party.  
Kenny was the only one that got a text back, even if it was nothing but a ‘sure’  
Craig didn’t dare to open the messages he’d gotten from Tweek.  
He wasn’t sure if he was feeling angry or hurt or if it was a very annoying mix of both emotions that made throwing up sound really good somehow.

There was no use in beating himself up about going to that party but it sure as hell did not stop Craig from doing so anyway, after all he’d known beforehand that it’d be a bad idea.  
He should’ve listened to himself, Craig thought as he closed his eyes, not even bothering to change into his sleep wear or to get under the covers.  
That all seemed pointless right now.

Actually, Tweek wasn’t to blame for anything that happened at the party, they had broken up years ago, at Craig’s suggestion and therefore he hadn’t done anything unjust.  
It didn’t change the fact that Craig felt like someone had pinned him to a stack of hay and used him as a target, leaving him more bullet holes than person by the end.  
Craig had never properly learnt how to cope with emotions like those, all too bothersome, too hard to understand.  
He preferred having control over himself and the more he thought about his feelings, the more he felt that control slipping. So he usually came up with some sort of solution instantly to make sure that he couldn’t be bothered too long.

The last time there had been an emotional issue with Tweek, Craig’s solution had been breaking up with him.  
He wasn’t sure what to do this time.

 

**

It was as if South Park was an odd little bubble that was completely separated from the outside world, a dangerous but weirdly safe town kept under a dome that shielded it.  
Craig first noticed that when he had been thirteen years old and facing the fact that High School meant a completely different environment.  
He barely cared about the new people, he didn’t plan on befriending them anyway, it was leaving behind the familiar that worried him.

Tweek had gone completely mad through the summer over the prospect of changing schools, dangerously increasing his coffee intake and checking up on escape routes out of their new school.  
Apparently there were only two of those and no reasoning that accidents were unlikely to happen had helped to calm him down.  
Sitting next to Tweek, comforting him as much as possible, Craig thought that what had worked in Elementary would maybe not work in High School and he took Tweeks hands in his, painfully aware that this might’ve been the last time he’d get to do this.

Telling Tweek that he considered breaking up ,before the new school year began, the best idea, was harder than he had imagined because Tweek was convinced that it was his fault somehow.  
He apologized to Craig profoundly and so much that it got hard to understand him until Craig used his special weapon, Stripe, to calm Tweek down enough to explain everything in detail.

Craig had discovered over the years that something about holding a small living creature let Tweek become oddly calm in no time.  
He looked absolutely serene every time Stripe was sitting on his legs, watching the animal with a faint smile.  
It worked perfectly and while Tweek was stroking Stripes head with two fingers, Craig told him that starting out in a new school with a thousand new faces (Tweek flinched at that) would be hard enough without having everyone at their toes when they’d find out about their relationship.

Craig would never admit that perhaps a tiny part of him was trying to give Tweek free.  
They had just turned thirteen and he had heard everywhere that soon puberty would spark for real and would make everyone crazy in love.  
‘Soon you boys will be all over the girls, and then it’s over with ‘ew girls are gross’. And the same goes for girls, not long and you will be interesting to them’, Clyde’s Dad had told them two weeks prior at their sleepover.  
Just in case Tweek would be all over the girls soon too (or the boys, it didn’t change the situation much), Craig had decided to break up to give him the chance to be free to do anything he might want.

He was convinced that their little relationship had only held so long anyways because they were too young to understand proper relationships and because it was more of a very close friendship.  
One with Hand holding and cuddling, but more of a friendship nonetheless.  
If it was just routine that held it together as it was, changing school would break them up in no time anyway.  
So the logical solution to it all was speeding up the process and doing it before it would turn too painful.

It had taken him up to one week before the end of summer holidays though to do it because the problem was that even though his thought process made perfect sense, Craig did not actually want to break up with Tweek.  
Not only because being in a relationship with him was comfortable, but also because he liked Tweek.  
A lot.  
He wasn’t sure exactly what that meant and admittedly, that scared him enough to initiate the break up in a panic reaction.

Tweek agreed eventually and even went as far as calling Craig’s idea reasonable and when Craig had told his Parents about it over dinner at home, he was sure he’d seen his Father hold back a few tears.  
In general everyone’s reactions were a lot more extreme than his own.  
While Craig kept his emotions to himself, holding them in a tight chokehold, Clyde had mourned their breakup like the loss of a loved one and he had held a ceremony with Token over the fries they all shared.  
It was all very ridiculous and it had Craig deciding to never get into another relationship to avoid this happening all over again.

**

When Craig woke up on the next morning he felt as if he hadn’t even slept in the first place.  
His head was heavy and lifting it from his pillow was as if trying to carry an entire football team on your back.  
Even thinking about the football players, and therefore the party, had Craig groaning and sending a glare to his phone that was still blinking furiously, reminding him of the messages he had ignored the night before.  
One glance at the digital alarm clock on his nightstand made him fall back into bed with a groan.  
07.30, he had barely slept four and a half hours.

Craig turned around and pressed his face into the soft fabric underneath him that smelled like his shampoo.  
If never standing up again would’ve been an option, he would’ve taken it but with things as they were he had to show his face in class again in only two days.  
Craig wasn’t someone that chickened out of things. He had been to school the day after he had been outed to all the boys in his class and he would go to school after this disaster as well.  
After all less people had been there to watch him get ridiculed and exposed at that party and he had vowed to himself long ago to never give Daniel the satisfaction of having broken him enough for Craig to stay curled up in bed.

Luckily, at least in Craig’s eyes, ninety percent of the guests had been too drunk out of their mind to witness what had been going on.  
Martin, despite being seventeen like the rest of them, had made sure that alcohol was the most featured drink at his party and every punch that should’ve been alcohol free had been spiked five minutes after the party had started.  
But if it hadn’t been for Martins irresponsible use of alcoholic beverages, Craig would’ve finally managed turned into a citywide laughing stock and it went without saying that he wasn’t very into that idea.

It had taken the boys in his class two years to let go of the whole ‘gay disaster’ and Craig, despite acting like he had not cared the least, still wasn’t completely over how it had made him feel.  
There had been something about this situation, full exposure, which had frightened even Craig to the bone.  
Yesterday’s little humiliation was best left a complete secret, as far as that was possible.  
With Daniel as direct witness however it was to expect that his class would know by now.

Craig let out a frustrated yell that was muffled by his pillow, once again flooded with emotions that he’d rather lock away safely for them to never emerge again. Instead the slight hangover kept him from blocking out all harmful thoughts and whatever it was that wanted to torture him used the chance to hit him full speed.

How nice his morning could’ve been if only he would’ve stayed away from that party.  
Craig was aware that he would’ve found out about Tweek one way or another anyhow, but he could think of a million nicer ways to discover it than on a party, with half his class around.  
Craig was not sure why he was still hung up over Tweek anyways or if he was just hung up over him again and had somehow missed the year’s in-between completely.  
All that he knew was that seeing Tweek yesterday had shot a bullet right through his chest and had massacred him right in front of his friends and Daniel Fields of all people.

Craig wanted to throw up just thinking about Daniels satisfied little smirk at seeing Craig completely trashed.  
Where Cartman had let go of ridiculing Craig after a few months, too focused on Kyle and on making it into the football team, he had made it last year and immediately had gotten even more full of himself than before, Daniel basically throve on seeing any sort of emotion in Craig.  
He had tried everything possible ever since he had seen that graffiti in the locker room, without results, but yesterday, he had gotten his holy grail, without having to work for it.

If Craig hadn’t been so focused on leaving the room, he would’ve hit Daniel until he would’ve laid on the floor begging for mercy.

As if searching for a replacement, Craig pressed his fists against the headboard of his bed until his knuckles turned white and he was able to feel the hard wood against his bones.  
He thought about the way Daniel had looked with a bruised eye back in 9th Grade, when Tweek had punched him right into the face.  
Until this day Craig regretted not having seen him pull that blow, but from Token’s, Jimmy’s and Clyde’s stories it must’ve been impressive, and it certainly was enough to keep Daniel off Tweek’s back even four years later.  
Tweek had been embarrassed, hiding his face in his hands when Clyde had told Craig about it the first time, all of them spread out in Craig’s room, the day after the incident.  
They had tried to make him believe that their visits were just coincidence but Craig knew better than that, his friends had been worried about him and even though he hadn’t said a word, he had appreciated the gesture.

Clyde was an awful story teller because he liked to over exaggerate and he made up parts, like that there had been a dog. Craig couldn’t recall what part the dog had played in Clyde’s extended version of the story but it had been there for some reason.  
Jimmy on the other hand excelled in describing the way Tweek had slammed his fist into Daniels face and the exact expression Daniel had worn after being hit.  
That had always been Craig’s favourite part of the story, also because even if Tweek tried to remain embarrassed, a satisfied smile made its way onto his lips every time.

Craig would bet his entire collection of red racer VHS on Tweek still being able to deal a mad punch.  
Too many people underestimated him for his size; Tweek had never made it over the 1,60m, but Craig knew better than that. He had seen Tweek at boxing practice often enough to be sure that he would be able to defeat Craig, who was by far the tallest kid in the class, with ease.  
When Tweek had started to do those training sessions, Craig had asked himself if it was very gay to be imagining Tweek pinning him down.  
The answer, unsurprisingly, had been yes, it was very gay.

Craig turned back onto his back and stared at the stars sticking to his ceiling.  
Why couldn’t his thoughts stop turning around Tweek? It was like as if he was a moon, stuck in Tweeks gravitation field.  
Another misconception that people had about them was that Tweek had been the one pulling circles around Craig when it was Craig that had become so used to Tweeks company that he had suffered a great deal after their break up.  
And was suffering yet again.

Even at thirteen Craig had already known that romance was bullshit.  
But, Craig thought, that little shithead had it easy making those promises; he hadn’t considered that his older self would fall for the same guy he had been together with in elementary school.

His phone buzzed and pulled Craig out of his thoughts and into the silence of his room again.  
Finally giving in he rolled around in his bed until he was able to reach for his phone and had to blink a couple of times as his eyes adjusted to the sudden light coming from the screen.  
The battery was down to seven percent because he had forgotten to charge it overnight and Craig reached out of his bed to blindly grab the cord of his charger, plugging into his mobile.  
Token had messaged him a minute ago, telling him that his hangover was massive but offered to come over anyway in case Craig would need company.  
He declined and, after a minute of staring, opened the messages he had received from Tweek the night before.

[08.07., 01:30] Tweek: cant find you so Im trying messages  
[08.07., 01:30] Tweek: Im staying in Martins garden a lil its too packed inside  
[08.07., 01:45] Craig: ah shit didn’t see your message until now  
[08.07., 01:45] Craig: explains why I couldn’t find you, coming out now, Clyde is getting too touchy  
[08.07., 02:03] Tweek: didn’t you say ur coming where are u?  
[08.07., 02:16] Tweek: you left already?  
[08.07., 02:20] Tweek: ooo Im really sorry  
[08.07., 02:21] Tweek: daniel is being an asshole telling around terrible things about you  
[08.07., 02:21] Tweek: im considering punching him again  
[08.07., 02:30] Tweek: Craig?  
[08.07., 02:30] Tweek: clyde told me to fuck off and immediately apologized again  
[08.07., 02:31] Tweek: whats going on

Craig stared at Tweeks name on the screen and the small profile picture that showed him holding Stripe and smiling down at the guinea pig. Craig had taken the picture last year when Tweek had stayed over for the weekend and Craig had spent a couple of evenings looking at it.

[08.07., 08:12] Craig: Clyde is dumb and when is Daniel the fuckface ever not an asshole

It didn’t surprise Craig much that Tweek responded not even two seconds later, he always had problems with insomnia. That had made for countless nights that Craig had stayed awake with burning eyes and a body yearning for sleep, laying in bed next to Tweek.  
After breaking up, Craig had usually prepared a second bed on the floor for Tweek but somewhere along the nights Tweek had always crawled into bed with him and Craig had, already expecting it, opened his arms for Tweek.

[08.07., 08:12] Tweek: 100% tru but that doesn’t answer what made daniel act like that again something mustve happened  
[08.07., 08:12] Tweek: and don’t try to tell me it was nothing I kno you

Before Craig could answer, his phone rang, relieving him, temporarily, of the pressure of having to speak with Tweek about the last night.  
His voice sounded broken when he answered the device, like he had smoked an entire package of cigarettes.  
On the other end of the line he heard Jimmy laugh, “G-Good Morning, sleeping bea..beau..b-beauty. Didn’t get enough rest the ni..night?”  
Craig decided it should be declared illegal to be this happy at this time of the day because it certainly wasn’t normal to be the human equivalent of a spotlight at full strength on a Saturday morning.

“What do you want, Jimmy?”, judging the way his friend sounded, he was still oblivious to the nights events, probably because Tweek didn’t know the full story and Token too hungover to be having a phone call at 8 am.  
“I’m a j-jou…journ..journalist at heart C-Craig, I gotta know what I missed on the party. “  
“Call Clyde instead, he loves talking”, actually Craig was well aware that Clyde was out of question, he’d only rise from his bed like a zombie in the afternoon.  
Craig was tempted to hang up on his friend, make up some story to tell Tweek before catching some more sleep “C-Co..come on! Clyde doesn’t hear his ph..pho..phone when he’s hungover. And we b-both know he is. You’re my only ho..ho..hope”

“I’m no one’s hoe, Jimmy”, he answered, not able to keep the zero motivation low in his voice, stifling a chuckle  
“Su..sure dude, anyway, what h-ha..happ..happen…happened last night”

**

Craig had been waiting in front of Clyde’s house since twenty minutes and his patience was running dangerously low.  
Turning the car around and leaving sounded more and more appealing.  
Clyde would find another way to get to that party and even if he wouldn’t, Craig couldn’t care less.  
He already regretted having agreed to join in on the ‘fun’.

Luckily enough for Clyde and his chances to get to the party, he was done a minute later and exited his home, waving enthusiastically at Craig who only rolled his eyes in return.  
Clyde must’ve missed that, or decided to ignore it, because he got into the car with a bright smile, throwing his letterman jacket onto the backseat and buckling up before turning to Craig.  
“Dude I’m so pumped for that party. It’s going to be amazing. A party in my honour, I could get used to that”

Craig started the car without another word and left it to Clyde to enter the address into the navigation system.  
Getting the car from his parents had been a little tricky as originally his parents had wanted to go out on Friday and would’ve needed it themselves but then his mother had fallen ill and his father had allowed him to use the car as long as he’d return it in one piece.

The Party was to take place at Martin Hamming’s, who lived half an hour away from South Park and had offered his house for the party. Something about his parents being gone over the weekend and wanting to get a girl right into his bed, Craig hadn’t cared enough to listen.  
He had never been at that boy’s house but apparently his parents were shitting money because it was bigger than Tokens place (who was still the richest person that Craig knew personally).  
Martin opened the door for them like the perfect little host and there were a couple of people inside already that yelled when they saw who had just arrived.

“Clyde!! The Man of the hour!”  
They were handed a plastic cup with something that smelled like an awful beer mix and Clyde was immediately pulled into the crowd by some football team member that laid an arm around his shoulder and made their cups meet for a toast.  
The last thing Craig caught of Clyde was his bright smile, visibly enjoying all the attention he was getting.  
Cursing to himself, Craig took a small sip of the liquid in the cup only to pull a disgusted face and leaving it on the next surface he could find.

Two minutes after they had arrived Craig was already sitting at the counter in the open kitchen, drinking beer straight from the bottle that he had found in the fridge. It seemed more trustable than anything else that was served tonight.  
He was sure he’d seen someone spike the strawberry punch that Heidi had brought for those that wanted to stay sober.  
Usually he would’ve picked up Jimmy on the way as well but he had some sort of family meeting that kept him out of the city until after midnight.  
Craig would’ve switched places with Jimmy in a second and he was sure it was a mutual feeling, Jimmy seemed really down when he had told them he couldn’t make it.  
Token would arrive with Nicole as soon as they’d be done exchanging sloppy kisses in the car, which they denied to be doing, but Craig had caught them in the act once and therefore knew better than to believe anything they said.

An hour later Kyle was making his way towards Craig, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck where his hair was shaven short.  
Craig raised his eyebrows, not having expected Kyle at a party like this, mainly because he avoided any gatherings that made it possible to bump into Stan on accident.  
And with all the alcohol flowing tonight, Stan was present for sure.  
Kyle must’ve been the designated driver or dragged along as well because he looked the same sort of exhausted that Craig felt, when he sat down next to him.  
“Not at home learning?” Craig said mockingly and Kyle seemed like he heard that today before because he barely made an attempt to roll his eyes and only began drumming his fingers against the granite surface of the counter.  
“Kenny made me come”  
“Oh did he now? Thought someone else was your type”, Craig took a sip of his beer and send Kyle the short flicker of a smirk that was regarded with an angry glare and a hit to the forearm.

“I haven’t seen Tweek around”, Kyle returned, staring Craig dead into the eyes.  
“Well played”  
Nodding to Kyle, Craig looked around, searching the area for the aforementioned, unsure if Kyle had been honest, or if it really had been nothing but returning the jab to the guts.  
He couldn’t spot Tweek but he did see Token, who was talking with a girl completely unfamiliar to Craig and not far from him Stan, leaned against a doorway with a cup in his hands.  
Next to him there was Wendy, who seemed to be in a very one-sided argument with Stan.

Craig’s eyes flickered to Kyle who was looking into the same direction as Craig had a second ago, face scrunched up in equal parts anger and longing.  
Kyle had the tendency to walk around with a constant frown and Craig thought it completely destroyed the beauty of Kyle’s sharp features.  
Craig had tried viewing Kyle in a more romantic light once, but he had stopped that pretty quick again because the damn tragic crush that Kyle had on Stan kept him from considering anyone else.  
And Craig really didn’t need any more stress in his life than he already had.

A cause of stress for Craig came heading his direction at this second in the form of Daniel Field.  
He had lost his braces in 10th Grade but he was still greasy and covered in pimples.  
Daniel wore an ironed button up that pulled over his chest, he had started building muscles over the last year and did everything to show them off, obviously compensating for his face and personality.  
Leaning one arm on the counter he grinned at Craig and Kyle.  
“If that ain’t my favourite fag, Craig, didn’t think you’d be invited. If I would’ve known they allow people like you in here I wouldn’t have come”

He grabbed Craig’s beer and gulped it down in one go.  
Craig raised a brow, “I thought you were so scared of catching the gay. But now you’re drinking from my bottle? Isn’t that dangerous to you?”  
Daniel’s face turned red immediately and he vigorously rubbed the back of his hand over his lips, far from satisfied with the reaction he had gotten out of Craig.  
Currently at a loss for words, Daniel stomped off, after spitting into Craig’s direction and slamming the empty beer bottle onto the counter.

“He’s almost like a second Cartman. Isn’t one of those enough”, Kyle commented, rubbing his temples before looking around as if to check the area for his personal tormenter, that didn’t seem to be very interested in bothering him at the moment.  
Cartman was busy boasting to a few 11th Grade students that had sneaked onto the party and were, naïvely impressed by the letterman jacket he wore, gasping at every word he said.

After about one hour that he’d spent talking to Kyle, Craig’s phone buzzed in his pocket.  
He had just moved from the kitchen, after bidding farewell to Kyle that had gotten tied into a conversation by David, into the living room where Token and Clyde had caught him.  
“Who’s writing you?” Token asked, a handful of chips in his mouth while Clyde had hugged Craig, slurring that he had missed him too much.  
“Tweek”; Craig answered “He’s in the yard, too crowded in here”  
“Ah Tweek, yes I miss him too. Hug me back Craig, come on!” Clyde demanded, more or less hanging on Craig’s side, close to falling over.  
Token dropped his cup to catch Clyde before he could hit the floor.  
“God damnit Clyde, all my beer’s gone wasted now”

Clyde seemed close to tears now and Craig jumped in before he could start to cry.  
“You could use some fresh air too.”, he nodded to Token who grabbed one of Clyde’s arms while Craig took the other.  
Making their way through the crowd they walked past Bebe, who was dancing with Red and eyed Clyde hanging off his friend’s arms with a raised brow.

Outside, Craig let go of Clyde who immediately sunk onto one of the benches that Martin had put up for the occasion.  
There were less people in the garden than there were in the house; a couple were standing in the shadow of the small greenhouse, inhaling the smoke from their cigarettes, Craig suspected a few of them were part of the South Park Goth Kids.  
A string of lights was draped over the two small trees in the yard, another was put up around the fence, looking as if it had already fallen off once and had just been placed back halfassedly .

In the faint light provided by the strings, Craig could see Tweek under one of the trees, the lightbulbs hanging over his head like stars.  
He was holding a cup in his softly shaking hands and was currently in a conversation with someone that had their back turned to Craig.  
Next to him, Token and Clyde were talking to each other; Craig barely noticed how Clyde once again tried to hug him, already having stepped forward.  
Clyde ended up stumbling over and in an attempt to save himself, fell onto his ass into the grass.

Token began laughing hysterically and Clyde, after the initial shock, joined in, yelping for air.  
Even Craig turned his head to look at both of them and he heard the people behind the greenhouse hiss about how embarrassing this was.  
With all the noise, Craig expected Tweek to have noticed them by now and he was looking forward to speaking with someone that hadn’t gone completely mad thanks to alcohol intake.  
Only it didn’t get as far as that because Tweek suddenly seemed very occupied as Craig looked back over at him.

Craig barely felt Clyde slap his leg, staring at the scene unfolding in front of him, overwhelmed by something that was best described as having your guts sucked out of your body.  
Under the yellow lights by the tree, Tweek was being kissed.

Whoever was currently sticking his tongue down Tweeks throat had the audacity to push a hand into his light blond hair and Craig felt as if someone had set his body on fire, watching that person do what he had imagined doing so often.  
Tweek had gotten on his tiptoes to keep their lips connected, arms wrapped around the others waist, too sort to reach the shoulders.  
Craig caught himself thinking that they were kissing Tweek all wrong, not leaning down to him at all, not holding him by the small of his back and without noticing his hands curled into fists.

Token and Clyde had caught on as well now, and Clyde picked himself up off the grass to stand next to Craig, swaying a little.  
Craig couldn’t in a million years begin to describe how he was feeling because he had never experienced something like this before, such a violent, vicious grip around his heart that his perfectly neutral expression slid off his face.  
Like a second skin it peeled off and left Craig behind, vulnerable and exposed, with wide eyes and burning lungs.

Craig never spoke about that day in 9th Grade, not even with Tweek, using his own hands to shield his heart from the memories successfully.  
Standing in Martin Hamming’s yard, all protection was gone and Craig felt completely naked, like everyone could stare right into his soul, a place that he kept hidden even from himself.  
Watching Tweek kiss that person, Craig was forced to let his emotions take over the control. And they were gripping the wheel as if they had been waiting in the dark for ages, ready to make him pay for every time that he had forced them back, placed them under the command of his brain.

At first he wasn’t sure if Daniels voice was nothing but his imagination, the echo of 9th Grade haunting him, but it was there in the yard as well, patiently waiting to torture again.  
Daniels face came into focus as he stepped in between him and Tweek. Craig had no clue why Daniel was here right now but he was ready to accept that it was part of some sort of fucked up punishment and of course, Daniel was part of it.

“This is glorious! The fag looks like he’s about to cry”  
Daniel looked like he was absolutely high on the fact that Craig was experiencing the top two of his worst moments at the same time, eyes gleaming as if he was mad.  
It was as if he had waited years for this one moment, ready to savour it until the last bit and even if Craig barely heard Daniel, everything sounding as if he was listening from underwater, he knew in that moment that whatever Daniel was about to say would haunt him forever.

“Serves you right! You’re a disgusting fag and you know what, you’ll never be happy so you can do everyone a favour and just kill yourself”

Craig reeled backwards as if Daniels words had stung him and turned on his heels, rushing out of the yard, blindly pushing through the crowd.  
When he was close to the door he faintly heard Kyle calling after him but Craig didn’t stop running and running until he sat in his car.  
He started driving before anyone could follow him, away from the house that was practically vibrating with the music that was played inside.

Halfway on the road, Craig stopped the car at the abandoned parking lot of some grocery store and took a deep breath that his lungs had been screaming for.  
He turned off his car and sat in complete darkness for a few minutes, waiting for the world to adjust to its usual spin again.  
Getting himself back under his usual level of control proved to be very hard, as if his emotions were untamed beasts that bit back at his hand when he tried to shove them back into their cage.  
A part of him was well aware that what happened tonight should’ve been a wakeup call for Craig; his brain had set off a warning signal.

But he wasn’t ready to face all of this, wasn’t ready to let himself revisit what had just happened because he knew that there’d be too much anger, too much fear and sadness to fit into his body.  
How could people willingly let themselves experience this, the few minutes in the yard had frightened Craig to the bones.

He started the car again when his breathing had mellowed out, already threading the morning to come.

**

For what felt like an eternity, the line was quiet until Craig heard Jimmy blow out air through his nose, sounding furious.  
“I can’t b-believe this! How da..da..dare he say something like that?! Where does he l-live? I’ll go there and k-ki..ki..ki..beat his ass!”  
“You can’t drive, Jimmy”, Craig reminded him, not sure whether or not to be touched by his friends plan.  
“Token can dr-drive me. I’m sure Tweek will want to come too. Wh..what he say about this a-a..any..anyway?”

“Haven’t really spoken to him yet. He did offer to beat Daniel up too”  
“See? My P..plan is already coming into a-action”; there was a small pause in which Jimmy seemed to be thinking about something  
“but Daniel aside, what did Tweek say about your b-br..brea..breakd..reaction to his make out session?”

“He didn’t see it, luckily”, Craig commented, glad his voice was not betraying him, sounding as neutral as any other day  
“Token told him, he said he’s sorry and asked if it really upset me that much”  
He shrugged, well aware that Jimmy was not able to see any of his gestures.

“S..so Tweek’s a little ob-ob..oblivious, huh?”

**

It turned out that Tweek was more than a little oblivious, a fact that honestly surprised Craig because Tweek was usually a very perceptive person.  
But it saved Craig from the humiliation of having Tweek know immediately that the reason Craig had been upset about seeing him make out with someone was that he had a crush on him.  
In order to get Tweek of his back he had told him what Daniel had thrown at his head, and Tweek didn’t doubt a second that this had been the main reason for Craig to vanish from the party so suddenly.  
He had suggested the same thing that Jimmy had planned; beating Daniel up, and he had been a little too enthusiastic about Jimmy’s idea when Craig had informed him about it.

As much as Craig wanted to get back at Daniel, he wasn’t willing to go into prison for turning up at his doorstep with his friends like some crazy gang.  
That didn’t mean that he wouldn’t take a week of suspension from school for kicking Daniel right into the nuts on the schoolyard.  
With different parents he would’ve had to explain himself, but his mother had just sighed and had sent him into his room, returning the middle finger he had shown her.

Daniels expression as he had sunk onto the dirty gravel, cradling his crotch in his hands, had been priceless and a little bit payback for what he had done to Craig at the party.  
At least Daniel looked very pathetic on his knees like that, hissing at Craig who was sure he had seen tears in Daniels eyes.

Craig had locked away the painful memories of the two worst moments in his life again, successfully pushing the cork into the bottle that contained all negative emotions and pretended that none of it had ever happened.  
Of course the peace of it had been short lived because on the Tuesday after being suspended, Tweek had stood in front of his door with the excuse that he had been told to deliver the Homework to Craig.  
It wasn’t all lies, Tweek did carry a few loose papers that he shoved at Craig with a few instructions and Craig couldn’t believe that missing two days of school already resulted in that much Homework.  
Maybe he was given extra for being such a badly behaving student.

Without any other option, he asked Tweek inside and soon he was sitting on Craig’s bed cross-legged while Craig threw the sheets onto his desk that was already overflowing with astronomy books and the physics presentation he was working on.  
When he turned back around Tweek was looking at the stars on Craig’s ceiling, seeming lost in thoughts.  
He jumped slightly when Craig sat down next to him and began picking at a plaster on his lower arm.  
“Craig argh, I really think we should, I mean you should, talk about what ah happened”  
Tweek still hadn’t lost the habit of chewing on his nails and so he had the nail of his thumb between his teeth while observing Craig with a prompting look in his eyes.

“I’d rather not”; Craig answered, staring at the poster of the solar system that hung on the wall behind Tweek, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable with Tweek’s eyes on him like he tried to read Craig.  
He wasn’t very eager to unfold the full variety of negative emotions that connected to that party in front of Tweek.  
Especially not because he had to avoid asking Tweek the question that had burned in his guts ever since.  
Now being alone with him made it even more of a challenge to pretend he did not have sleepless nights asking himself who the person had been that Tweek was apparently so damn close with.

“It’s okay to be sad, Craig. What Daniel said to you was argh, was awful as fuck. Maybe talking about it will help you”  
There was silence for a few seconds before Tweek gasped, twitching violently before lunging forward to grab Craig’s arm.  
“You don’t believe what he said, right?!!”  
Looking back at Tweek he seemed honestly frightened that Craig had taken Daniels words to his heart. Tweek was watching him with eyes blown wide and brows furrowed.  
A few blond strands were hanging into his face and Craig supressed the urge to push them back behind his ear.

Craig wasn’t sure what the answer to that question was, of course he was aware that all words that came out of Daniels mouth were completely useless and went best ignored, but even with his emotions bottled up tight, Craig remembered that in that moment upon hearing it, he had believed it, even if just for a split second.  
“Of course I don’t. Daniel is full of shit”, he said instead and dragged his teeth over the lip piercing he had gotten when he had turned seventeen this year.  
Tweek stayed silent for a second, softly swinging his leg of Craig’s bed, as if trying to find out whether or not he could trust Craig on this.

“Argh! Good”, he said then, letting go of Craig’s upper arm and returned to fumbling with the colourful plaster on his arm.  
Craig took in the sight of Tweek sitting a few centimetres away, with his mismatched socks, one rainbow striped, the other with little stars, and a shirt that said ‘All my sytems are nervous’.  
Tweek had always disliked haircuts, something about not wanting someone with scissors so close to his neck, and his hair was long enough now to be tied into a ponytail.  
He wore it like that today as well, some longer strands falling out of it and framing his face.

Craig liked the way Tweek wore his hair now, a lot.  
There was a soft dusk of freckles over Tweeks cheeks like small collections of stars that only became visible if he spent the summer outside in the sun.  
It was absolutely strange to Craig that he was the only one that was turning around Tweek, stuck in his gravitation field, because Tweek was as vast as the universe, beautiful and strange and full of unexplored corners and glowing brighter than anything else in Craig’s life.  
Well that was he had been the only one.  
Now there was this person. 

“Who did you kiss at that party?”  
Tweek raised his head, visibly surprised, not having expected that question and the laughter that left him sounded equal parts nervous and embarrassed.  
“It was Paul”  
“Paul?!” Craig wasn’t sure if he was hearing right because he had assumed that whoever had kissed Tweek was from another school, not a member of their class.  
Paul usually sat in the back of the class, just like Craig preferred to do as well, and was a generally quiet dude, with dark rimmed glasses and a wild head of brown hair.  
Craig had honestly never paid much attention to him but now he wished he would’ve because he wasn’t sure if Paul had talked to Tweek a lot or not.

“Yeah”; Tweek confirmed, rubbing his earlobe in the attempt to keep his hands busy.  
“I’ve been on a couple of argh..dates with him but I’m pretty sure he only asked me because there’s not much hhgn, not much ‘to pick from’ ”, he made quotation marks into the air with his fingers.  
To think that Tweek might not have been Paul’s first choice for a partner was beyond Craig, who would give a lot to get that date with Tweek.  
“What makes you think that?” Craig asked, not wanting to seem as if he was too lost in thoughts to listen to Tweek.

“He mentioned he thought about asking you out but that he was too scared because of the…fuss around you”, he pulled a disgruntled face as he said that, seemingly only repeating what Paul had told him.  
Craig rolled his eyes.  
‘The Fuss around him’ was a fitting description for a few things in Craig’s life; his long detention record; the locker room incident; Daniel that wouldn’t leave Craig alone.  
If he were a kid only in midst of figuring out their sexuality he wouldn’t exactly choose the guy that was shadowed by a bully that continuously threw slurs at him either.  
The risk of being outed as well in the process was too high.

Tweek was a good choice, sweet and fun to hang around, not exactly a blank slate to school yard fights either but with a smile that made it easy to forget that he had the strength and guts to beat you up.  
Craig couldn’t blame Paul for trying, but he did, mainly because he hated the thought of that guy using Tweek like this.  
“Why did you continue going out with him then?”  
“He’s nice and it’s been a while since…you and I, I just…argh, wanted to find out how it is, I guess”  
Craig nodded and swallowed down the immediate impulse to ask Tweek why he hadn’t come to Craig if he wanted to experience dating as a teen.

Wanting to get into a relationship with the elementary crush wasn’t as normal as Craig’s heart liked to pretend it was.  
And giving Tweek the freedom to try everything out that he wanted had been one of the reasons Craig had broken up with him four years ago, it was ridiculous to blame him for doing just that now.  
It was as if his thirteen year old self had been given a glance into the future.

“Are you going to keep on seeing him?”  
Tweek hummed to himself and Craig felt the heat rise, suddenly too warm in his dark blue hoodie.  
He pulled it off and threw it onto his chair, where the mountain of jackets and dirty shirts was growing, startling Tweek in the process, that after twitching violently, proceeded to stare at Craig’s chest.  
Craig wasn’t sure what there was to look at, he wore a boring black shirt without any print so there wasn’t much to see where Tweek’s eyes were pinned.  
“Tweek?”  
“Argh! Oh yeah sorry uhm I’m not sure, probably not after what happened on the party”

Craig wasn’t sure what that meant but he wasn’t going to ask, too glad to have heard that Paul would not be Tweeks poster boyfriend that Craig would have to pretend to tolerate for Tweeks sake.  
Just imagining Paul sitting at lunch with them, holding Tweeks hand, made Craig want to throw up all over his red racer blanket.  
He’d rather have a candlelight dinner with Stan Marsh than witness Tweek kiss that Paul guy another time.

“Cool,cool” Craig answered and his heart made a little jump when Tweek cocked his head, watching him in confusion.  
“Cool?”  
Craig just hummed in agreement, and as stereotypical as it sounded, got lost in Tweeks eyes.  
Something about them always made Craig feel as if staring right into space, like he didn’t need the telescope he had been gifted for his eleventh birthday anymore because all the stars had collected in Tweeks eyes.  
Tweek was the brightest star in the sky and he was right there on Craig’s bed, close enough to touch and get flooded in that light.

“Craig, listen”, Tweek started again, placing one hand lightly on Craig’s; “Having emotions is alright. You don’t have to bottle them up all the time. Sometimes it’s…good to let them lead instead of giving all control to your brain”

That was when Craig leaned over, slowly enough for Tweek to escape the situation any time, closer and closer to that shining light across of him, and kissed Tweek.  
In a way it was like coming home, and inside of him his heart was cheering, flipping itself over in pure joy.  
He felt completely weightless, like flying, when Tweek tilted his head, lips pressing back against Craigs, the last push Craig’s heart had needed to go completely crazy, thundering in his chest as if trying to break free.

And so the Moon shot out of its gravitation field to melt into its Planet, reunited as an ancient Star, bigger and brighter than anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading  
> I hope you enjoyed this  
> Kudos and Comments are appreciated but obviously not mendatory  
> Big fucking thanks if you do either or both tho <3
> 
> I still have a Style oneshot ready but it's not beta-ed yet so it'll still be a little until I can post it.
> 
> Thanks to WrongDecision for beta reading <3


End file.
